Plurality
"The annual value of television output in English for Wales will have declined by £25 - £30m in real terms between 2006 and 2013, the year before the ITV licence expires".
Whose report, out today, says so? The Broadcasting Advisory Group.
Who they? There are four members: Huw Jones, former Chief Executive of S4C; Julie Barton, former editor of BBC Radio Wales; Geraint Talfan Davies, former Controller of BBC Wales, a man of many hats and Professor Kevin Morgan, Professor of Governance and Development at Cardiff University, an old hand at this task force business.
What was their task? To give the Assembly Government an idea of how you, if you're a television viewer in Wales, can get your news and watch programmes provided by someone other than the BBC. With ITV Wales news dwindling fast, they put it like this: "ensuring that English language television programmes from Wales continue to offer plurality to viewers with regard to news, current affairs and general interest programmes".
Plurality - that's where it's at. How, in Wales, should you go about it?
Here we go.
Broadcasting is not, remember, a devolved issue. It remains the responsibility of the UK government. In fact no-one wants the responsibility for it here thank you very much ... not yet anyway. So as far as any money goes, that should come from the UK government and UK tax payers says the advisory group.
How much? They recommend sticking with that figure of £25-£30m and creating a fund, one that would be divvied up by the Wales Medica Commission, a newly-established body that would be independent from government.
Independent broadcasters, existing broadcasters - S4C, Channel 4, ITV - social enterprises or any combination of the above would bid for a share of the money. They'd use it to provide things like an evening news service, a current affairs programme, documentaries or drama relating to Wales.
The advisory group also raise the possiblity of setting up a completely new channel for Wales in order to maintain distinctive programming in Wales.
Why would the UK government come up with the money? How would they be persuaded to regard Wales, in this instance, as a special case?
The group offer their own answer to that one: "The democratic and cultural deficit described in this report is of sufficient seriousness for it to command a very high level of priority and urgency in the formulation of governemnt policy".
Let me put my head above the parapet and add this: when a weekly government lobby briefing a few weeks ago started promptly at 10.15am every journalist in the room worked for one broadcaster: the BBC.
You might distrust the whole concept of lobby briefings - that, though, is another matter. On this occasion the room filled up pretty quickly with four colleagues, one each from PA, the Western Mail, the Daily Post and ITV Wales.
But was that healthy? No, it wasn't.
I'm Betsan Powys, BBC Wales' political editor. I'll be blogging the inside track on 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~19~RS~)
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Shock ! Horror ! Probe !
Bethan Jenkins talks sense !
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/wales_politics/7762592.stm
Hold the front page - and credit where it is due.
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won't the economic conditions make this unlikely?
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erm... why wasn't it healthy?
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Broadcasting ..... "In fact no-one wants the responsibility for it here thank you very much"
Bethan Jenkins has expressed an interest.
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"when a weekly government lobby briefing a few weeks ago started promptly at 10.15am every journalist in the room worked for one broadcaster: the BBC.... On this occasion the room filled up pretty quickly with four colleagues, one each from PA, the Western Mail, the Daily Post and ITV Wales. "
Isn't this a contradiction in terms ?? Or do you not mean 'On this occasion' but 'On another occasion' ?
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Nostalgia flashback...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1832304.ece
On a vaguely related point - which television stations will be covering the exciting and long awaited announcement of who will win in the Jenny vs Kirsty showdown ??
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6. At 7:20pm on 03 Dec 2008, lordBeddGelert wrote:
On a vaguely related point - which television stations will be covering the exciting and long awaited announcement of who will win in the Jenny vs Kirsty showdown ??
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LBG.
You mean they're showing mud-wrestling on S4C !!!!!!!!!!
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Noah, We can but hope...
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Any voice in Wales broadcasting from Wales and of interest in Wales is welcome I am sure.
Last year Plaid MP Adam Price highlighted what he perceived as a lack of a Welsh focus on BBC news broadcasts. Price threatened to withhold future television license fees in response to a lack of thorough news coverage of Wales, echoing a BBC Audience Council for Wales July 2007 report citing public frustration over how the Welsh Assembly is characterized in national media. Plaid AM Bethan Jenkins agreed with Price and called for responsibility for broadcasting to be devolved to the Welsh Assembly, voicing similar calls from Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond. Criticism of the BBC's news coverage for Wales and Scotland since devolution prompted debate of possibly providing evening news broadcasts with specific focus for both countries.
Sources: "Plaid MP's BBC licence fee threat" Monday, 20 August 2007, and "BBC audiences 'want modern Wales'" Monday, 16 July 2007
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9. At 1:42pm on 04 Dec 2008, -Drachenfyre- wrote:
Last year Plaid MP Adam Price highlighted what he perceived as a lack of a Welsh focus on BBC news broadcasts. Price threatened to withhold future television license fees
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What exactly did "Price" mean by that?...."threatened to withold future television license fees"
Does that mean just his own licence fee, or is he thinking of whipping up the easily led ranks of Plaid Cymru into not paying?
What if we all decided on that course of action? What if some of us were fed up with the BBC's pathetic sports coverage on Saturday afternoons. Does Adam Price think we are justified in witholding our license money until it improves.
Although by no means the worst of this appalling Plaid Cymru bunch, he certainly does think highly of himself.....My opinion of our Adam has gone down several notches.
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There is a real problem with the media in Wales. Most of the serious print media is owned by one company - Trinity Mirror. Their flagship publications The Daily Post and The Western Mail both claim to be the National Newspaper of Wales - yet neither really compete against each other and are largely restricted to their respective regions.
TV seems to have given up any serious coverage and its franchise is Wales is scaling back any real local programming - including current affairs.
Given that most of the bread and butter issues, health, education, housing etc are decided in Wales if we are to have an informed and educated electorate then we need decent coverage. While the BBC is improving at UK level of differentiating between UK wide or England and Wales wide policies as opposed to England only it still fails to cover events in Wales at a UK level.
Given that a large percentage of Welsh homes don't even receive Welsh based TV we have real problems. Most of the evening press in Wales fails to cover in any depth all Wales issues.
It falls to the BBC to fill those gaps. I am convinced that an English Language channel properly resourced and running decent programming would be of interest.
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I'm sure that Adam Price will be quaking in his shoes when he learns that Noa's opinion of him has gone down a few notches...lol...get a like Noa
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should be " get a life"
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I'm always at a loss to know what people mean when they say Wales misses out in terms of 'media coverage'. Mind you, I don't have a telly, so I am relying on what is on offer when I visit my folks, but there is plenty there...
- Scrum 5 Live
- Y Clwb Rygbi
Try seeing English club rugby covered at this level of granularity.
Football League of Wales - try getting to see the English equivalent of Caersws vs Total Network Solutions
Radio Wales - Far superior to most execrable 'Alan Partridge' style 'Radio Local' tosh..
Radio Cymru - again, no such equivalent exists for those speaking Cornish or Geordie.
BBC 2W - Local Welsh telly for hours and hours each week.
'Wedi 3 / Wedi 7' - all with English subtitles, visiting places like the Welsh Botanic Gardens, and 100s of other places that other TV stations just don't reach..
Proper Welsh news for half an hour on S4C, again with English subtitles.
Hours and hours and hours of Dai Jones cavorting round the countryside to meet REAL PEOPLE in a way English telly never seems to bother with, as they are too 'celeb-obsessed'.
And anyway, why bother with the telly anyway ? Books, cinema and music are all available, or why not participate in a Welsh tradition of getting off your backsides and making your own culture and entertainment - which surely is the whole point of living in Wales ??
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Message 11...
does it not strike Lyn Thomas that there is NO demand for what she seems to think is missing from Wales and Welsh media.
Over the last few years, since the rise of the nationalists, with their perpetual cry for Cymraeg everything, they have been 'awarded' at vast public expense that diabolical S4C, which without a mini number of language programmes such as Pobl y Cwm, would be almost viewer less, and despite being offered yet more financial aid from the public purse, a Cymraeg language newspaper has yet to appear on the newsstands.
Most publications over the years that have appeared have pretty well folded within weeks or a few months,... Why?.. it's a no brainer,... lack of take up by...guess who... The Welsh people.
Maybe one day soon, those who have their hands on OUR purse strings will take serious note of all that failure to support what the Plaid gang demand, and stop paying out these vast sums into the bottom less pit down in the Bay of Pigs.
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mapexx has a point - there is no real demand for regional/national programming in Wales. The Western Mail's sales are largely in bulk - to councils, libraries and Government offices - though I can't speak for the Daily Post's sales. Both BBC Wales and HTV/ITV Wales place their regional programming against the other's soaps or after the 10 o'clock news. Before the current rush to digital TV, Wales had one of the largest take-ups of satellite TV, which has no regional content at all.
There is a demand for Welsh-language programming, but not, it seems, for English-language Welsh programming other than local news and sport (and if the BBC would like to keep Mr Butler in England and off my TV screen, I would be very grateful!). It would be good if national (UK) programming occasionally reflected Wales - we have plenty of Scottish drama and North of England drama, but nothing set in Wales except the (OTT) Torchwood. Local programmes for local people is not plausible any more.
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Betsan:
I hope that everyone gets the resources they need....
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